This Is Guernsey

By Rob Batiste

The King’s Club production line was to produce a dream team of world beaters. Rob Batiste continues his celebration of the squash club’s first 35 years with a look at the top men players IT IS often overlooked, or plainly forgotten, just how good the King’s squash production line was. But not by Reg Harbour, the coach who started the yellow dot rolling with a long list of players benefiting from his geometric approach to coaching.

Harbour, who since leaving King’s has returned to teaching mathematics, is particularly proud of what the club achieved and the fact that one stage Guernsey, as a squash nation, were up with the giants.

He points to the fact that at one stage the island had a mixed team that was the match for any other in the world and that had the squash authorities run such an event in addition to separate men’s and women’s team championships, Guernsey could have proved it.

Leading the way would have been our two celebrated women stars, Martine Le Moignan and Lisa Opie, one a world champion the other a British Open winner.

Add them to a male triumvirate of John and Richard Le Lievre and the maestro that was Mark Roberts, there was a time in the early 80s Guernsey could have beaten just about every nation.

With the Le Moignan-Opie axis then filling two of the top three spots in the world rankings, a Guernsey team would against every nation, bar possibly Australia and New Zealand, have a 2-0 head start before a men’s rubber was played.

And with Roberts playing at third string among the men, Guernsey could have been expected to pick up at least one men’s victory at a time when Le Lievre was ranked in the world top 30 and his younger brother was still basking in the glory of winning the British under-19 title.

But just who was the best Guernsey men’s player?

Working on the basis of career achievement an indisputable case has to be made for Jason Nicolle to be our number one.

He is the only male player to have made it onto the Guernsey Sports Commission’s hall of fame, having captained the England team and made 29 appearances for the national side.

Before his career closed with two appearances for Guernsey at the Kuala Lumpur and Manchester Commonwealth Games, he had also won two British Under 23 Open titles (in 1986 and 1987), the British Under 23 closed title in 1998 and by the end of that season was ranked eighth nationally and 23rd in the world.

Had his career corresponded with the peak period of the two women and the Le Lievres, there is no doubt Guernsey would have vied for a world team title or, had squash then been part of the Commonwealths, a team medal would have been guaranteed.

Nicolle’s highest world ranking was 14 in 1994 and he rose to number three in the English list the same season making the most of his ability, something you could not say of Roberts, the greatest Guernsey talent of all.

‘He could have made it higher [in the world] than any of them,’ said Harbour.

‘I could see him being world number two or three, he was that good. [Jonah] Barrington rated him too.’

One Roberts story that often does the rounds is that the legendary Barrington, the finest ever British men’s player, said he could turn Roberts into a world-beater but, to do so, he would have to have eyes in the back of his head and keep him in under tabs 24 hours a day.

But Roberts was his own man, working hard and playing hard, but not always on the squash court where his skills were regularly breathtaking.

I have vivid memories of him before he embarked on a mid-teen growth spurt, 4ft something and barely out of primary school, taking on island champion Max Trouteaud in the latter stages of the island championships.

There and then he was serving notice of an incredible hand-eye coordination and racket flair which made him one of Britain’s top juniors through the age-groups.

He can look back at 15 local and 10 Channel Islands singles titles and legendary status in the local game, but Roberts under-achieved that is for sure.

‘His insight into the court and striking ability was fantastic,’ said Harbour who recalled the time, as island handicap tournament director, he had Roberts and family hopping mad for insisting he could play only with the maximum points handicap and left-handed.

‘I couldn’t think of any other way of stopping him.’

And it didn’t.

In the space of a few days he turned himself from novice into a left-hander capable of defeating a Division One player in Ray Bushell.

Paul Matthews and Simon Gaudion were two more highly-skilled juniors who did not go as far as Roberts or Nicolle, but deserve mention.

The left-handed Gaudion beat Nicolle to win an all-Guernsey British under-14 final, but sadly did not push on to the greater things expected of him.

Sure, at adult level he remained one of the island’s top performers for many years, but lacked the ambition of Nicolle.

Matthews was good enough to keep Roberts on his toes during his teen years with ‘very solid racket skills’, recalls Harbour, who says he could not have asked more from him in application on the training court.

‘He was very disciplined, like a Lisa or John. He was very strong on the forehand.’

But Roberts was forever standing in his way and when they met seemed intimidated by his rival, failing to produce his best.

Before the new generation led by Le Lievre, one man stood tall over the local game.

On returning to the island from Zambia, Max Trouteaud had set the standard and ruled the roost until toppled from his perch by Le Lievre, who will always be indebted to the man he replaced as champion.

Trouteaud was not only a fine player, who enjoyed nothing more than to extract himself from precarious match situations, but also a player prepared to help the emerging youngsters.

Until you beat Max you weren’t a player.

Harbour will always be a big fan.

‘He was mentally fantastic. He’d like to give people one or two games start. Fantastically solid mentally and you couldn’t kill him off.’

Trouteaud was the best of the early generation, but in terms of influence no player had more on the Guernsey squash scene than the older of the Le Lievre brothers.

John set the scene for everything to come our way in terms of squash, providing the inspiration for others to follow.

He went to Nottingham, Nicolle, Le Moignan and Opie followed.

‘John got the bit between his teeth and squash suited his personality, because he could do it on his own,’ said Harbour, his early coach and mentor.

Like himself, Harbour’s protege was a deep thinker and when on tour to South Africa as a schoolboy he was shocked to discover how lively the ball was in comparison to the cold King’s and Elizabeth College courts: he discovered his own solution.

‘That was to always practise with a red dot [the most lively of the four-coloured options at the time] to simulate the conditions of hot courts and hot countries.

‘With it, he discovered your ball control becomes even more important.’

Having moved to Nottingham, Le Lievre became one of the top amateurs in the UK, became an England international many times over, ultimately turned professional and climbed to number 24 in the world, once beating the great Jahangir Khan.

All the while he served as in inspiration to all the youngsters back at his home club in Guernsey, as well as his brother Richard who was taking a different route to the top.

Possessing more natural flair than his brother Richard’s game developed at Gresham School where he developed nicely under the watchful eye of Malcolm Willstrop, one of the country’s top coaches.

In 1978, Le Lievre Mk II saved three match balls in the fourth before hitting back to beat Sean Flynn and supersede his brother by winning the British under-19 title. Unlike John, though, Richard did not see himself as a professional and before very long disappeared from the tournament scene.

A quarter-of-a-century later, Guernsey had a second British under-19 champion.

The conveyor belt of top talent had long ground to a standstill when another Elizabe-than hit the squash scene with an ambition to go all the way to the top. Chris Simpson was the name and having made his mark locally moved to Brighton from where he landed three British junior age-group titles including two under-19 titles.

He also proved himself to be the best under-19 in Europe and in the past two years has fought doggedly in a quest to move up the world rankings.

At 51, he has some way to go to outstrip the efforts of John Le Lievre and Nicolle, but whether he moves up or down the world ladder he has already succeeded in reminding everyone of what an extraordinary power in the world game Guernsey was 30 years ago.